Jim O’Rourke and Will Oldham provide score and narration for Northern Lights documentary, because Danny Elfman and Morgan Freeman are both dead

Those of you gearing up for a long five months of slipping on ice and scraping snow off your windshields might need a lil’ somethin’ somethin’ to remind you of the beauty and majesty of winter. While copious amounts of mulled wine and hot toddies might be the obvious first choice, why not delve a little more into the spiritual, the artistic, the natural side of that sky crud we call snow? And why not do it with your two best musical buddies, Jim O’Rourke and Will Oldham?

But don’t break out those matching parkas and family-size pack of Coors Lite and don’t start mapping your indie vision quest and sleeping bag arrangements just yet. Because it’s a film. You three pals aren’t going on the best gall-darn orienteering trip the North has ever seen. But you are going on a journey into SCIENCE and NATURE, courtesy of Canadian filmmaker Kyle Armstrong’s short documentary on the northern lights, Magnetic Reconnection. Narrated by Will Oldham and scored by Jim O’Rourke, the film contrasts the wonders of the aurora borealis with the man-made junk falling apart near Churchill, Manitoba. Armstrong told Exclaim!, “The aurora footage is probably the best footage ever captured, as I travelled with an auroral imaging specialist with two decades of experience, and a custom built digital IMAX camera, purposely built for shooting the northern lights.” Using a special camera designed by Dr. Robert Eather of Brookline, MA, Armstrong and Norwegian scientist Dr. Trond Trondsen promise to show you the northern lights like you’ve never seen ‘em before. Bigger. Brighter. More northerner.

The film premieres at L.A’s AFI Film Fest, which runs November 1-8. Then, from November 8-16, it visits New York’s Imagine Science Film Festival. Watch the trailer here:

Daniel Martin-McCormick is a very busy man. Focus on his Planet Mu-signed electronic project Ital right now. He released his debut record Hive Mind (TMT Review) a mere eight months ago, yet he’s already got a follow-up by the name of Dream On, which is out November 5 on Planet Mu. That would be plenty for one man. But wait! Martin-McCormick also plays in punk/electronic/disco/etc. group Mi Ami. And he has another act called Sex Worker! AND now he’s going to Europe! You know what that means?

Yeah. Ital is playing Italy. Cue the marching band. Bwomp womp a womp crash. My face lit up when I noticed that pointless coincidence.

Still exciting, though! Besides, Ital is playing quite a few European countries that aren’t Italy. You’ve got Poland, you’ve got Russia, you’ve got Sweden, and, hell, you’ve got Belgium. You’ve even got a few more that I didn’t list, because I didn’t want that sentence keep going. I will tell you that if you live in London, well, then you are a lucky person. Ital’s not playing just there once, he is playing there twice. Look at you, being lucky.

Grails, your favorite Portland instrumental rock band, has some new music on the horizon. The band is set to release the fifth volume of its Black Tar Prophecies series, appropriately titled Black Tar Prophecies, Vol. 5, the follow-up to last year’s Deep Politics (TMT Review), on October 30 via Kemado. Finland’s Pharaoh Overlord will provide the B-side for the album, so be ready for all kinds of psychedelia and sprawling soundscapes.

The band’s finishing up an Australian tour right now. Here are the remaining dates:

You can’t fault perennialTMTfavorites Emeralds for resting on their laurels. The Ohio psych/drone trio is nothing if not productive, with plenty of solo work from Mark McGuire and John Elliot since Does It Looks Like I’m Here? (TMT Review) came out, as well as an album due later this year.

Not to be left behind, Steve Hauschildt is looking to get back into the action with his second album on Kranky. Sequitur, the follow up to Tragedy & Geometry (TMT Review) is due November 12. Like its predecessor, Sequitur will feature more song-based music than what is generally featured on Emeralds albums, along with a slew of different instruments and sounds. Be on the lookout for vocoders, vintage synthesizers, as well as the kind of stuff you could probably find at your local Guitar Center. Check out samples here, and read Hauschildt’s lengthy description here:

This new album was recorded in both Vancouver and Cleveland. I used almost 20 different instruments, from every decade from the 60’s to the present, most of them synthesizers, drum machines and effects. This gives the album a much wider palette than my last, Tragedy & Geometry, and it also gives it a more classic/new sound, yet it is still a logical follow up to that LP. I also used some techniques in the studio where I controlled older instruments with the computer and this opened up new ways for me to explore their potential as well as their innate idiosyncrasies.

I was very interested in the artiﬁciality of vocal or choir-like sounds that emulate a person or group singing, and how this has evolved with the advancement of musical technology over the years. I also sang myself, and used a vocoder, not to sound robotic, but to remove the connotations of gender.

Those sounds are androgynous because they carry both masculine and feminine characteristics. I was inspired to carry this idea into music mainly because of the work of Camille Paglia and Donna Haraway. I feel that the album in a sense treads the imaginary boundary between Nature and Artiﬁce. It is postmodern, but not necessarily a post-Freudian statement on cyborg theory or feminism. Rather it is a musically mimetic domain where these ideas freely collide and coalesce.

By the time you finish reading this, there will probably be another Emeralds-related release announced, hopefully dealing with the the politics of cyborg theory in a post-Freudian world.

Nadja’s Aidan Baker and Leah Buckareff are the sort of people who drip gold dust, wishes, and batwings wherever they go. The road before them is paved with pixie dust and glitter, and the sun gives them a thumbs up each morning when they wake up. They’re just that cool. They’re that kind of people. COOL PEOPLE. The Berlin-based Toronto expats make beautiful, droning music together, but on their latest, Dagdrøm (or “daydream” to our non-elf, non-Danish speaking friends), they go full on Big Black/Jesus Lizard.

Which only stands to reason, since the intrepid duo put their drum machine to bed on this one and got Jesus Lizard drummer Mac McNeilly to pound the skins. Baker, it turns out, had toured with Jesus Lizard bass player David Simms a few years ago, got McNeilly’s email from him, and asked if he’d like to play drums on Nadja’s new record. And the rest, as they say, is history. Magical history. Nadja has released records on Alien8, Hydrahead, Southern Records, Robotic Empire, and their own Broken Spine Productions. They’re releasing this one through Ba Da Bing! and Broken Spine come October 30.

Amid announcements that the streaming music service is teaming with Samsung to bring its particular brand of legal streams to TVs and DVD Blu-Ray™ players throughout Europe, CNET is reporting that, regardless of their 151% jump in revenue compared to 2010, the company is operating a major loss. CNET quotes PrivCo, an organization that essentially mines data on private companies’ financial statuses, declaring Spotify “unsustainable” and confirms the numbers with a Spotify spokesperson.

It seems that, as Spotify grows, it is paying out more in royalties than any amount of advertising revenue or premium memberships can compensate for. Overall, net income dropped from -$37,555,868 to -$59,136,294. While these numbers look pretty dismal, as long as Spotify’s private investors keep ponying up the cash (Coca-Cola are in investment talks too), you can still watch your friends play the same four Ke$ha songs over and over at 4 AM via your Facebook feed.